


Feigned Betrayal

by Lire_Casander



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-10
Updated: 2008-02-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 05:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander





	1. Loneliness

The flames licked at the piece of parchment with eagerness, as if they were channelling Harry's feelings. He was staring into the space, his mind blocking out any happy thought, the memory of silver letters burnt in his soul, the sound of his own tears splashing onto his hands the only company to the cracking fire.

He found himself crying his heart out, those six words hammering in his head as they became a chant.

 _I have fallen for someone else_.

He didn't even notice the broken cup at his feet, betrayal the only reality in his now shattered life.


	2. Guilt

Draco refused to get out of the bed where he had curled up in a ball a week before. Narcissa was worried, but she didn't want to suffocate her son with questions he would not answer. He had come back home after three months of living with Harry Potter. But he was not the same man he used to be. He had become a broken Draco, unhealthy bags under his eyes and a crazy light in his pupils. He was clutching some sheets of tight handwriting, streams of tears running down his cheeks.

"I've betrayed him," was all he said.


	3. Pain

Harry had been staring at the pictures on the mantel for far too long. His eyes hurt and his fingers itched to touch, but the ever present ache he felt pressing on his chest every time he watched the happy matching smiles Draco and he sported on the snapshots was too much to bear.

Desperately, angrily, madly, he pushed at the frames and threw them all to the ground, his arm breaking the glasses in the process, earning himself a few cuts that bled and hurt, but not as much as the written confession of betrayal he knew by heart.


	4. Decision

Draco sighed, still curled in a ball on his bed. He had lied and he had betrayed Harry's confidence once again; he would have to live with the knowledge of having refused to the only miracle he had in his life.

But it had been for the greater good, or so he thought.

Her words still hammered in his minds, destroying his dreams and leaving just a sad shade of the man he used to be.

_Do you really think he'd be a simple Auror if he had a choice? It's you who keeps him from improving._

So he left.


	5. Suspicion

Harry felt as though the world had become a sad excuse of a place, as though _he_ had become a sad shell of a human being, since Draco had left. He had no interest in living anymore, not when he had lost the only person he had ever loved.

Yet, an insidious thought nagged at the back of his mind. _What if?_ it seemed to ask. What if Draco hadn't betrayed him at all?

There were several gaps in that story, in those six words, and he intended to fill them with true syllables instead of coward sounds of abandonment.


	6. Sadness

Draco eventually got up from his bed, only to sit by the window and watch as snowflakes fell from the sky in perfect swirls of white beauty. Narcissa stood by the door, silently witnessing her son's downfall. The sheets he had taken with him rested on the nightstand – she knew she could snatch them without him noticing.

She needed to know what had happened between them before she even tried to help Draco regain the composure he had evidently left with Harry.

Draco didn't even hear his mother tiptoeing into his room and taking the written confession of his betrayal.


	7. Farce

The letter came as both a gift and a curse. As Harry drank in each sentence written elegantly, his mind relentlessly replayed the past fortnight, realizing the only betrayal in his life now devoid of love.

He took a handful of Floo powder and paid visit to an old friend.

"What have you done?" he asked without preamble.

As Hermione confessed, he understood it all had been a farce to convince Draco to leave him.

Not wasting any more time, too nervous and too tired to trust his Apparition skills, Harry stepped into Hermione-s fireplace and said clearly his destination.


	8. Confession

His hand was on the window-sill, his fingers tapping at the wood while he absent-mindedly stared at the horizon. Draco hadn't eaten in two weeks, hadn't said a word in fifteen days, hadn't explained a thing in a fortnight.

But Narcissa knew enough to understand the root of his desperation. The words he had written were part of a much longer letter she was sure he had never sent to Harry.

_I'm not good for you, I'll never be. Please forgive my lies about betraying you, but they needed to be told. I love you enough to let you go._


	9. Discovery

Harry crossed the wards at Malfoy Manor easily, his mind set on a fixed thought whirling around his head like a mantra. _I will not let you go. I cannot afford losing you._ He found no resistance, as if the house had been waiting for him to arrive.

The confession of betrayal Draco had left was almost shred to pieces under his restless nails when he entered the hall. There, waiting for him like an oracle waiting to be heard, was a piece of paper written in a tight script.

His eyes revealed him the truth his heart already knew.


	10. Truth

The footsteps were too loud to be ignored, and the pounding at his door was too strong to be non-intentional. However, Draco tried not to think about who may be trying to get into his room; when the door opened and warm arms embraced him, he knew his efforts had been in vain.

"Don't ever think of not being good enough for me."

"But---"

"No buts. Not even faked betrayal could get you away from me. I love you."

"But---"

"Do you love me?"

The last barrier broken down completely by the silk in Harry's voice, Draco nodded.


	11. Apology (Epilogue)

"There has to be a reason why you betrayed me, Hermione."

"I didn't---"

"Oh, yes, you did. You convinced Draco that he wasn't enough for me. That's betrayal."

"He restrained you to the point of not wanting to be promoted!"

"In which fantasy world have you been living? I didn't want a more dangerous job because I love him! I don't want him to worry!"

"But---"

"You told him to leave me alone, Hermione. Unless you apologise, I don't have anything else to say."

"I'm not sorry."

"Then we're over."

He Apparated right back into his lover's arms


End file.
